Pittsburgh Review

Gov. Thomas Wolf recently highlighted charter-school regulations designed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) to "increase transparency, equity, quality and accountability."

According to a release by Wolf on Tuesday, the regulations clarify parts of the state Charter School Law so that they align with the public charter school operations and traditional public schools. They were approved in March by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) and are being sent to the Legislative Reference Bureau to be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

“These regulations clearly define for the first time charter schools’ responsibilities to the taxpayers who fund them,” Governor Wolf said in the release. “Parents and taxpayers have a right to know how charter schools used the nearly $3 billion in publicly paid tuition they received in the past school year. With the Legislature’s failure to act on comprehensive reform, we were forced to take this path.”

Regulations include providing clear application requirements for those seeking to open a charter school, regional charter school or cyber chart school; and ensuring that all Pennsylvania students can access charter schools. In addition, they would clarify ethics requirements, require school districts and charter schools to follow the same fiscal management standards, and streamline the process for charter schools to request tuition payments from the state and school districts. These regulations also are intended to provide a consistent, common-sense method for charter schools involving health-care requirements.

The PDE started developing regulations in August 2019, and it involved gathering nearly 2,000 comments from charter schools, school districts, lawmakers and the public. 

Every county in Pennsylvania has students enrolled in a charter school, amounting to 179 charter schools and cyber charter schools statewide in this school year.